Housing market continues slow-down in Fraser Valley

The housing market is continuing to slow in Abbotsford and other areas of the Fraser Valley.

The once-hot real estate market continued to slow last month, with Fraser Valley sales dropping below the 10-year average for the first time this year.

The total number of home sales in the region dropped by 24 per cent from September 2015, from 1,727 to 1,305. There was an near-equal drop in sales from August of this year when sales were tallied at 1,694.

The average price for a detached home fell nearly six per cent across the region to $853,712 from $906,596 in August.

The drop was reflected in Abbotsford as well, with a 22 per cent drop from September 2015, which saw 135 sales to last month’s 105.

Sales numbers for apartments and townhouses also fell year over year for Abbotsford, although less dramatically, both dropping approximately nine per cent.

“What we’re experiencing is an environment where the summer sizzle has ceased, and demand is producing numbers in line with what we’ve seen historically,” said Fraser Valley Real Estate Board president Charles Wiebe, in a statement. “It seems dramatic, as would anything else that wasn’t the incredible, continuous uptick we’ve seen for the last 18 months.”

Both the benchmark and median prices for detached homes in Abbotsford stayed virtually the same from between August and September this year, changing by less than one per cent.

But prices remain well above last year’s prices. The median price for a detached home came in at $669,000 last month, virtually unchanged from August, but still a nearly 40 per cent increase from last September, when it was $481,800. The median price also rose significantly year over year from $462,000 to $620,000.

The benchmark price for townhouses was $299,000 last month, a 31 per cent increase from last September but only a four per cent rise from the previous month.

Apartment prices were singing a similar tune, with the benchmark price rising 32 per cent to $198,600 over last year, a mere three per cent rise over August 2016.

Across the Fraser River, in Mission there were 55 detached home sales, a 23 per cent decrease from the same month in 2015.